Thursday, December 18, 2014

As noted earlier, the most miserably pointless and demoralizing election in memory (How pointless? Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has decided to not make a single change in his Cabinet -- and you will not believe the reasons given for this decision: Link - Video J) has, for no good but plenty of bad reasons, unleashed a torrent of some of the best writing on Japanese politics ever.

Mr. Harris and I, working from the same facts, came to essentially the same conclusions in the first hours after the election. I, writing for my blog, published first. Harris, because he is an assiduous worker bee, published a more comprehensive and readable article on someone else's calendar.

Smith points out a major problem facing Abe: what to do about Koizumi Shinjiro, the Liberal Democratic Party's most popular and saleable legislator. The latest Koizumi in the Diet received the most votes of any LDP winner despite spending almost no time in his own district campaigning. Instead Koizumi played the good soldier, campaigning all over the country for other LDP candidates.

Abe tried burying Koizumi in Fukushima-related issues in the previous Diet. With Koizumi coming off a huge win, this may be more difficult.

As you can guess from the title, the soon-to-be Dr. Wallace (fingers crossed) does not think so. The Democratic Party of Japan has survived as an institution thanks to the large number of seats it has quarantined off in the House of Councillors. That block of seats comes up for reelection in 2016 - meaning that the new party leader, who is to be elected on January 18 (Why do they tarry? Amaterasu only knows) will have to quickly bring all the disparate groupings within the party into line and workout a modus vivendi with Japan Innovation Party.

Wallace also sees the election as enhancing the powers of the DPJ's rokuninshu, the six center-right legislators seen as potential leaders (The Yomiuri Shimbun less charitably calls them "the Gang of Six") of the party. I hope he is wrong, as all with the possible exception of current party secretary-general and next party leader favorite Edano Yukio are infected with the leaden seriousness that hobbles the party at election time. Politics should be about joy and these guys (and they are all guys) are not the Joy Division.

I cannot agree with Okumura Jun's conclusion that the DPJ and the Japan Innovation Party have to merge. Any attempt to link up the DPJ's remnants of the Japan Socialist Party with Hashimoto Toru's populists would lead to an explosion. Better to leave the two parties seperate, each running their candidates in designated DPJ-only or JIP-only districts, to challenging the LDP's conservative corporatism on the national scale with two radically different critiques.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Yesterday we all got a chance to see something we have not seen for a long time: a sober, somber and scared Abe Shinzo. He stumbled through his press conference, repeating himself, at one point launching his favorite overly poetic crutch phrase tsu-tsu-ura-ura ("in every harbor; in every inlet" -- the Japanese equivalent of "from sea to shining sea") twice in the space of 70 seconds. When a reporter from the Abe-hostile Tokyo Shimbun started out the Q&A with two simple questions about voter turnout and the schedule for the compilation of next year's budget (the latter being delayed due to the dissolution of the Diet and the election), Abe first feigned being flustered at being asked "so many questions" (Two is "so many"?) ignored them both, repeated the contents of his opening statement, and stared blankly, pretending he had answered either one.

Had Abe been facing a room of real reporters rather than the powder puff tossers of the Sankei Shinbun, Fuji Television and NHK, we might today be talking about Abe Shinzo's press conference meltdown. As it is, the video, available on the LDP's YouTube channel, features a far-from-impressive performance by the PM. (Link - YouTube video J)

This is the guy whose party won 291 out of 475 seats in Sunday's election, with his ruling coalition retained its supermajority in the House of Representatives at 326 seats? Whose main opposition, the Democratic Party of Japan only gained 11 seats during the middle of a terrible recession, and whose leader lost his district race so badly he could not return to the Diet via the proportional list zombie route?

Yes.

The LDP won on Sunday. The Komeito won on Sunday.

Abe Shinzo lost.

How is this possible?

Missed Expectations -

When a corporation fails to hit the consensus earnings-per-share, its stock price tumbles. The company might post really great numbers. Nevertheless, by not meeting expectations, its performance is deemed a failure.

Advance polling by both the major news organizations and the political parties projected the LDP would win over 300 seats. However, the party finished election night with 291, fewer seats even than the party held in the last Diet.

Early on Abe and the leaders of the coalition had tried to talk down the victory line in this election. However, by the beginning of last week 300 seats became the new normal (the initial high Kyodo projections so depressed the editors of the Tokyo Shimbun, one of Kyodo's owners, that the paper did not print the results on its front page).

As the party leader who called the election, then failed to lead his party to its projected victory, Abe Shinzo lost.

Beating Kaieda Banri -

Abe Shinzo and the rest of the Cabinet conducted themselves with utter gracelessness in the last days of the campaign, traveling to the home districts of the leaders of the opposition, as if they were seeking to not just beat the opposition but decapitate and humiliate it. Abe and Finance Minister Aso Taro indeed finished their campaigns in a boisterous rally in Akihabara for Tokyo District #1 candidate Yamada Miki.

District #1 is of course DPJ leader Kaieda Banri's district.

These "grind their faces into the dirt" tactics have boomeranged. Not only did Kaieda again lose in his district, Yamada beat him by such a large margin that he could not be resurrected on the proportional list. Out of the Diet, Kaieda is out as leader.

Unfortunately for Abe Shinzo, Kaieda Banri was the number one reason why voters would not vote and candidates would not run for the DPJ. In driving him out of the leadership position, which he would have clung to in loud desperation had he been revived as a PR zombie, Abe has kicked out of office his best ally in terms of keeping the DPJ down and the LDP in power.

So Abe lost.

Voter Turnout -

Abe Shinzo won the premiership a second time in what had been up that point the most dispiriting election in a generation, with voter turnout at its lowest ever.

After two years of Abe Shinzo's leadership, the public is even more demoralized, with turnout falling by 7% over 2012's historic low. The first victory was deemed shabby at 59% turnout. Victory at 52% is shabbier still.

Sure, the LDP finished with a million more votes nationwide in the proportional balloting than in 2012. However that gain of 1 million was out of nearly 5.8 million liberated by the breakups of the Japan Restoration Party and the Your Party.

When you pick up only 15% of what was available, you are not a winner.

So Abe lost.

Destruction of the Right Wing -

The hard right Party for the Next Generations, led by Abe Shinzo Best Friend Forever Hiranuma Takeo and Ishihara Shintaro, evaporated, going from 20 to 2 seats. The Your Party, a libertarian, pro-business, anti-bureaucracy party that won 5 million votes in 2012 (just TWO YEARS AGO) did not even survive to contest the election, its founder and Abe Shinzo Best Friend Forever Watanabe Yoshimi going down to defeat in a seat his family had held continuously for 50 years.

In this final agony of his friends to the right, Abe has lost the ability to threaten the Komeito with a new hawk-hawk (or hawk-hawk-hawk) coalition replacing the current hawk-dove, LDP-Komeito coalition. He has also lost useful militants who could ask revisionist history and war responsibility questions, with Abe and his government being able further their own revisionist agendas without taking any responsibility for events ("Look, it's not us. We were just answering questions coming from the opposition!")

So Abe lost.

Empowerment of the Pacifists -

Three parties could walk away from Sunday's elections with their heads held high. The first was the Japan Innovation Party, which clawed and scratched its way to a respectable loss of single seat when the party had been projected to lose over 10.

The two parties who gained seats, and in a big way, were the Komeito and the Communists.

The Komeito, by picking up seats when the LDP lost them, has increased its marginal leverage in negotiations with its coalition partner. The Komeito already made it presence felt in the confused, cramped and unpopular July 1 Cabinet Decision reversing the government's stance as to the unconstitutionality of the exercise of collective self-defense. It is certain that as the focus of the nation's attention shifts to the 15 or so Basic Laws that have to be revised to implement the July 1 Cabinet Decision, the Komeito will make use of this increased leverage so that the policy choices more closely reflect the concerns of the Komeito base.

As for the performance of the JCP, it was off the charts. The JCP not only managed to land a district seat -- an outcome supposedly rendered impossible by the 1993 adoption of single member districts -- but the JCP now has more than the 20 seat minimum necessary for a party's being able to introduce bills to the Diet.

The pacifist Left has been empowered, both in and out of government.

So Abe lost.

Anyone thinks that with the Komeito murmuring louder and the JCP screaming, figuratively, Mr. Abe is going to take his party's victory in Sunday's election to go on and do anything more than pay lip service to more patriotic education, greater Self Defense Forces activity abroad and revision of the Constitution's Article 9 -- as he does in the above linked video -- then that person is in need of a seriousness transplant.

Because, on Sunday, Abe lost.

And he knows it.

Later - Notice I did not say anything about the LDP's getting wiped out in Okinawa...

Later still- This post has been edited to remove typographical and style errors.

Even later still - Tobias Harris, looking at the same facts and coming to the same conclusions, checks in with a brilliant, comprehensive essay for Foreign Policy. (Link)

I heartily agree with his contention that Abe has taken his biggest blunderbuss and shot it, leaving him little with which to discipline his allies and cow his enemies.

Here are the single member district vote totals, nationwide, for the 14 December 2014 House of Representatives election.

Click on image to open in a new window.

Taking a rough view from the difference between the single member district and the proportional voting, Komeito voters provided over 6.5 million votes of the 7.8 million vote difference in between the LDP's SMD vote and its PR vote. Roughly speaking, Komeito voters provided 1/4 of all votes received by LDP candidates in the districts.

Anyone want to venture a new guess when the LDP/Komeito divorce will take place?

Notable is the number of SMD votes for Japan Communist Party candidates, with a nearly a million vote difference in between the SMD and the PR numbers. When the Communists were the only opposition or the other choices were an unattractive mainstream opposition candidate and an LDP candidate, Communist candidates received the protest vote.

Then again, in 2012, the JCP received over a million of these protest votes, in an election where the voters had many, many more choices.

Here is the breakdown of the party proportional vote in Sunday's House of Representatives election, national totals.

Click on image to open in a new window.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and the LDP have been proudly noting that the party received over 1 million more votes than it did in the victory of 2012, when it received 16,624,457 votes.

As for the oppostion parties, the DPJ raised its total by 140,000 votes, having received 9,628,653 in the 2012 election. The Japan Restoration Party and the Your Party together received a total of 17,507,814 votes in 2012. In 2014, the remnants of these two parties, the JIP and NexGen, received a total of 9,797,618 votes.

Who really get to crow, though? The Japan Communist Party. It received nearly 2.4 million more votes than it did in December 2012, a two year increase of 64%.

Later - An earlier version of this post stated that the increase of the JCP proportional vote was 62%. Sorry.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Were I to indulge in sincerely grateful hyperbole, I would say that I'm speechless, Justin McCurry. (Link)

But I have a voice, and my limited self-knowledge compels me to shout, "No, no. I actually know very, very little. If I know any one of great value, it is to keep up with what the hard-working, smart folks are writing."

If you want to know about Japan as it is, right now, on the eve of The Election Proving Nothing, find the latest writing by:

While the December 2014 House of Representatives elections has been demoralizing on most fronts -- "Political system designed to deliver a victory for the Liberal Democratic Party against an organized, impassioned and popular opposition delivers a landslide LDP victory against a disorganized, lackluster and infuriating opposition: Surprise!" -- the election has stimulated Japan observers to produce some of the best writing we have seen on Japanese elections in recent memory -- perhaps ever.

Just the last few days, we have been privileged with:

- Sheila Smith's magisterial overview of the issues and ideas going into the campaign

Friday, December 12, 2014

I used to, in private, characterize Prime Minister Abe Shinzo as Japan's George W. Bush: a silver spoon in mouth grandson of privilege elevated to the premiership despite a lack of fundamental appreciation of much but overflowing with a bristling resentment worthy of a rain-soaked porcupine. Certainly his first stint in office was Bush-like, albeit conducted at seven times George W. Bush speed.

The returned Abe Shinzo, transformed by a stint in the political wilderness, is a rather different creature. In his uncharacteristic liberalism in policy after winning a victory over a wounded opposition, and flapping and crass conduct of an election destined to end in a landslide, the U.S. president Abe is emulating now seems to be not Bush fils but rather Richard Milhous Nixon.

Which may explain the odd Pauline Kael Phenomenon we are seeing: huge, crushing poll numbers but little direct anecdotal evidence of anyone rooting for the PM or his party -- outside the former domain of Choshu, possibly.

Writing on Sunday's election for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Patrick Zoll quotes me on what is the killer for the hopes of the Democratic Party of Japan and the Japan Innovation Party -- the crushing effect low voter turnout has upon their potentiatl electoral performances. (Link - D)

If there were some indication of increased voter interst -- like dramatically higher number of voters using the absentee ballot option -- there would be grounds for imagining a surprise rally to the flags of the premium opposition parties (that is not an actual technical term, I am just testing driving an adjective).

Thursday, December 11, 2014

The treatment received by the Okinawa Prefectural government is likely to be all the more ferrous and chilly if all four Liberal Democratic Party candidates go down to defeat in Sunday's House of Representatives election. (Link - J)

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

David Pilling delivers a huge thumbs up to the post of December 6. (Link）

Best not tell Professor Noah Smith of Stonybrook. He asked over Twitter what alternatives Japan had. I told him Abenomics done in an integrated way.

As for the article, I disagree with Professor Gerald Curtis (see him at the FCCJ on December 15) who says the two party system has fallen apart. I see a great deal of hope down the line, in two years' to three year's time.

In 2012, final pre-vote support percentages for the LDP and the DPJ were 26.6％ and 16.6%, respectively.

With the opposition contesting in too few districts, there is nothing that can stop the LDP from stomping to victory...and with the new, higher numbers for the Komeito, the coalition looks even more fearsome.

I wish I could say that I am the original author of the metaphor that the first two arrows of the Three Arrows of Abenomics were anesthetic for the Japanese economy, administered in advance of the surgery of the third arrow, structural reform. I think the first person to suggest this metaphor was Richard Katz of The Oriental Economist.

I cannot attend but I hope you can what is likely to be a no-holds barred intellectual tussle between two sophisticated veterans. Paul Sracic and Okumura Jun will tangle this month at Temple University Japan - ICAS over a deceptively simple-looking and very much hush-hush question: if push comes to shove in the East China Sea, would the United States really go to war with China over the Senkakus?

Thursday, December 04, 2014

There are something funny things going on in terms of these mega polls supporting projections of a massive LDP victory on December 14*

1) The Yomiuri and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun both are basing their reporting on a survey with 120,000 voters called, 80,000 responses, and a 64% response rate.

Oddly identical numbers.

Hmmm...

2) The survey the Yomiuri used found 42% of respondents Support the Abe Cabinet and 39% Do Not Support the Cabinet. In the Yomiuri survey done three weeks ago, 55% of voters contact said they Support the Cabinet, and 36% said they Do Not Support.

Should we be talking about momentum (勢い) in our headlines so much, ladies and gentlemen of the press?

Hmmmm...

3) The Kyodo News is saying it polled 150,000 households and received 120,000 responses, a response rate of 80% (polling organizations normally report a 55%~65% rate of response).

Double hmmmm...

I do not doubt that if all these different polls are showing a distribution of voting patterns ending up at the 300+ seat figure for the Liberal Democratic Party that there is a significant likelihood of the party winning that many seat.

I would like to wait until next week, when The Asahi Shimbun at least promises to have snapshots of every one of the 295 district races by December 11.

Sometime between now and Monday 8 December 2014 at 12:30 p.m. I will have to get my act together. Because...

Professional Luncheon: "After the Election – What Happens Next?" by Cucek & Toshikawa

Monday, December 08, 2014, 12:30 - 14:30

Michael Thomas Cucek, Adjunct Fellow, Temple University Japan, ICAS

Takao Toshikawa, Editor in Chief of Insideline and Tokyo Bureau Chief of the Oriental Economist

Language: The speech and Q & A will be in English and Japanese with English interpretation.

"After the Election – What Happens Next?"

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's surprise decision to call a snap general election has succeeded in at least one of its aims – it has caught Japan's divided political opposition on the hop. Abe is betting that he can persuade voters to return him to power with a stronger mandate, despite the fact that the country is technically in recession.

His conservative government wants to cut corporate taxes, boost defense and reduce Japan's huge public debt by raising the sales tax by two percent next year. He launched his cabinet in late 2012 with a three-pronged plan of fiscal expansion, loose money and economic reforms – known as "Abenomics." His opponents say the plan is dead. Abe says he is only getting started.

Will Abe's gamble pay off, and what can we expect after the election? As always at the FCCJ, we have invited some of Tokyo's best political thinkers to explain the likely outcome of the election. Michael Thomas Cucek runs the highly respected political blog Shisaku, a must-read for anyone interested in the machinations of Kasumigaseki. He is also an adjunct fellow of Temple University Japan, ICAS.

Toshikawa is a founder and editor-in-chief of Tokyo Insideline, a bi-weekly publication. One of the most astute and well-informed observers of Japanese politics, he is a well-known figure through his reporting and frequent TV appearances. His books include "Kasumigaseki; The Secret of MOF Power," "Japan-U.S. Power Line," and "Power Game Nagata-cho."

Sometime early next week, or perhaps sooner, the major news organizations will be presenting their most likely outcomes of the 14 December 2014 House of Representatives elections. These outlooks will be based on reporting and polling from the prefectural and regional bureaus, combined with sophisticated analysis of past voting records and a jaundiced view toward voter turnout, which, if one goes by the traditional indicator questions of "How much interest do you have in the upcoming election?" and "How definite is your wish to go to the polls on election day?" is on course for a historical and possibly delegitimizing low.

However, let us assume, for argument's sake, turnout is closer to historical norms, i.e., greater than 59%. And let us assume, and this would not be for argument's sake but simply because it can be inferred, that every additional voter showing up will be voting against the Liberal Democratic Party, both in the district and the proportional vote, save in the districts where the choice is between an LDP candidate and a Japan Communist Party (JCP) candidate.

What happens?

I took a look on Monday at the projected list of candidates in all 295 districts. Based upon that list and small set of rules-of-thumb, I tried to arrive at an estimate of the worst possible reasonably plausible result for the ruling LDP/Komeito coalition.

My rules-of-thumb for the districts were:

- When an LDP candidate and a Democratic Party of Japan candidate with an equal number of elections to the Diet face off in a district, the LDP candidate wins.

- When an LDP candidate faces off against a DPJ or a Japan Innovation Party candidate with a higher number of elections to the Diet, the opposition candidate wins.

- When and LDP candidate faces off against a DPJ candidate and a candidate from the JIP, and neither the DPJ nor the JIP candidate has two or more elections to the Diet than the LDP member, the LDP candidate wins. If either the DPJ or the JIP candidate has two more elections to the Diet than the LDP candidate, an opposition candidate wins.

- If an LDP candidate faces off against a DPJ candidate or a JIP candidate of any status, and a Party of the Future Generations candidate is also in the running, the LDP candidate loses.

- The Komeito wins all 9 of its district electoral contests.

- Veteran candidates with more than 7 elections to the Diet win their districts, irrespective of party allegiance.

In the proportional seats I took the median values of the "likely to vote for in the proportional half of the ballot" question answers found in the Mainichi Shimbun and Kyoto News polls, and apportioned the 180 proportional seats accordingly. This left a huge clot of seats with no party assignation, as the voters in the surveys were undecided or had no opinion. Based upon the Theory of Wild Guesses, I apportioned the proportional votes of these undecided/uncaring voters according to the following pattern:

3 for the LDP
2 for the DPJ
1 for the JIP
1 for the Communists
1 for the Komeito
0.2 for the Democratic Socialist Party (Socialists)
0.2 for the People's Life Party (Life)
0.2 for the Party for Future Generations (PFG)

After applying the above rules, and a fudge factor consisting of just being mean to a handful of candidates whom I find unattractive ("There is no way you are going to win again, you rodent!") I ended up with the following "if everything goes right for the DPJ and everything goes wrong for the LDP" election outcome:

Pretty wild results, admittedly.

- The LDP loses only 48 seats -- remember this is a worst case scenario -- and with their Komeito allies finish 9 seats above the crucial 266 seat "absolute safety" line where the coalition possess both all the chairs of Diet committees and a greater than 50% majority in all the committees -- meaning that any and all coalition-sponsored legislation passes out of committee without incident.

- The DPJ hits its goal of three figures with plenty to spare.

- The Communists nearly triple their representation. Yikes.

- The JIP, despite having two dynamic leaders in Eda Kenji and Hashimoto Toru, gets mauled.

This is just a first approximation. Probably a lot more independents with local followings will get through (the drop in the independents number looks suspect). Remember also this is assuming that a lot more folks vote than the major news organizations currently think are likely to show up at the polls.

More later.

Later - The major news organizations have checked in with their projections, based upon their internal numbers...and they are saying the coalition ends up with greater than 300 seats.

A question one hears with increasing frequency in foreign affairs discussions is an exasperated "What do the Chinese think they are doing?" I confess to having asked the question, and not facetiously either, more than a few times.

Denny Roy of the East-West Center has just produced a startlingly brief (just over 1000 words) essay offering the answers (plural) to the above question. A mere double handful of national goals seem to circumscribe and propel Chinese diplomatic and security behaviors.

I take issue with the assertion at the beginning of the concluding paragraph ("Most Chinese do not now aspire to superpower status"? Ah non, non, no, au contraire, mon ami, they really do aspire to it) but I most certainly will keep the essay nearby (figuratively speaking) to consult whenever the Beijing regime's actions and reactions befuddle me.

Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Half the people are stoned
And the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned
And the other half are swimming in the wrong direction.

- Paul Simon, for Leonard Bernstein's MASS (1971)

Hey everybody!

Remember way, way back, you know, like a month ago, when folks used to think Prime Minister Abe Shinzo should wait until the December revision of the third quarter GDP figures came out before he made a final decision on whether or not to approve the second rise in the consumption tax? If you cannot remember, this was back before the November 3 Shukan Bunshun article revealed Abe's and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide's tumescent desires for an election (that's with an "l") and the whole world's going nuts over the November 17 preliminary release showing a 1.3% decline over the previous quarter, making Prime Minister Abe's announcement of a Diet dissolution in the evening on November 18 almost an afterthought.

Well...

Japan's third-quarter recession seen milder than feared as capex growsReuters

TOKYO - Japan's fall into recession between July-September could turn out to be less severe than feared, with new capital expenditure figures out on Monday suggesting revisions will put the third quarter in a slightly more positive light.

The 5.5 percent year-on-year rise in capital expenditure over the third quarter reported on Monday followed a 3.0 percent annual increase in April-June, which could ease concerns about recovery from a sales tax increase earlier this year.

"The revised data will show a smaller contraction in GDP that could be close to zero," said Hiroaki Muto, senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co...

If the revised GDP figure for the third quarter turns out to be close to zero, meaning that all this panicked action was for nothing, then there will be hell to pay. If anything is going to tick off Japanese voters it is a Diet dissolution and an election for absolutely no reason.

And for folks like the urbane, serious and admirable House of Representatives member Kono Taro (LDP, 6 elections to the Diet) who has been posting hilarious and sad photos of his bedraggled, lonely self campaigning in the cold late autumn rains (the above photo is from yesterday) learning that this was all for nothing will make future relations with Abe and his confidants a bit...testy, shall we say?

Monday, December 01, 2014

True to its Watanabe Tsuneo-set mandate of being the Liberal Democratic Party's house organ, The Yomiuri Shimbun paints a picture of opposition parties in a hopeless, riven position requiring desperate actions on the eve of Tuesday's official start of the campaign:

Poll prompts opposition to eye mergerTheYomiuri Shimbun

Movements to restructure and consolidate opposition parties will likely intensify after the upcoming House of Representatives elections, as the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition party, has decided not to seek a change of government in the elections for the first time since its inauguration, observers said.

DPJ Secretary General Yukio Edano told the press in Osaka on Saturday that his party will not seek a change of government at the upcoming lower house election.

"We would like to win sufficient seats this time so that voters will consider our party a possibility for government at the next election," Edano said.

DPJ leader Banri Kaieda also told the press on the same day, "We will try to increase the number [of our seats] to bring a feeling of tension to the Diet." Kaieda apparently meant that the DPJ would virtually concede the continuation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration and seek a chance to return to power at another lower house election in the future.

It is the first time since the DPJ's inauguration — in 1998, with the merger of the former DPJ, the Good Governance Party and others — that it has not sought a "change of government" as its goal in lower house elections.

As of Saturday, the DPJ had fielded only 178 candidates for the upcoming elections, far fewer than the 238 required to claim a majority in the 475-seat lower house. Its final number of candidates is expected to be about 200, including those in the proportional representation section. Even if all of them were elected, the DPJ would not be able to form a single-party administration.

In the 1993 lower house elections, the Japanese Socialist Party, which was the main opposition party at that time, the Japan Renewal Party — a breakaway group from the LDP — and the others fought, calling for formation of a government with other parties opposed to the LDP and the Japanese Communist Party. Consequently, the government of Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa was formed after the elections under eight non-LDP political parties and groups.

However, the upcoming elections are unconventional compared to those of the past. They lack the option of a government based on cooperation among non-LDP parties since the DPJ this time has not revealed a plan to form a coalition government with the Japan Innovation Party or other opposition parties.

Meanwhile, the Japan Innovation Party had fielded only 81 candidates as of Saturday.

Phantom new party

Alarmed by Abe's lower house dissolution for a snap election, members of the opposition parties have come up with the idea of unifying non-LDP forces to create a new party.

Former DPJ leader Seiji Maehara secretly met Japan Innovation Party coleader Toru Hashimoto in Osaka on Nov. 15 to propose a plan to form a new party.

"Let's form a new party with the DPJ, the Japan Innovation Party and Your Party," Maehara was quoted as telling Hashimoto. "That will enable the opposition to win more seats than the ruling coalition parties at the next House of Councillors election to create a divided Diet."

Both Maehara and Hashimoto are considered advocates for reorganization of the opposition parties, and are sufficiently close as to hold frequent meetings with one another...

OK, first of all, the silly stuff. "The opposition" is not eyeing a merger, Maehara Seiji is. Maehara, Amaterasu bless him, cannot get through breakfast without thinking of establishing a new, streamlined, conservative breakaway opposition government party with like-minded elements of other parties. He just never gives up on this kind of transparent, pathetic machination. He is the dog who will not stop bringing you a stick for you to throw even after you close the front door on him.

As for not having a "change in government" as the Democratic Part of Japan's goal -- what is wrong with having realistic goals? If you do not have enough candidates running to form a government and have had no negotiations with other parties on forming a coalition , would not setting a goal of a change in government be an invitation for anti-opposition figures like, oh let's say, the editors of The Yomiuri Shimbun, to accuse the DPJ of attempting to defraud the voters, enticing them with a promise the party cannot, in fact, deliver upon?

Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Furthermore, the analysis at the beginning is backward. Restructuring and consolidation will not take place after the election is over. The period of restructuring and consolidation is now, in the run up to tomorrow's opening of the campaign. An impending election has forced parties and individuals to decide whether to stay put, move in another direction or get out of the game entirely. Once the election is over, the pressure for change will be off, and off for a long time.

As for the tone and structure of the article, which posits simultaneous states of panic and resignation in the opposition, well, the nicest way to dismiss this depiction is say, "Amaterasu, this was sooooo two weeks ago! It's December 1 baby! Think of how much more the opposition will get its act together over the next two weeks!"

For the opposition has gotten it's act together after the inevitability of a Diet dissolution sank in over the second week of November. The DPJ has 177 candidates for the districts, up from 149 two weeks ago. The Japan Innovation Party has 81 candidates, up from 49 two weeks ago. There is some overlap in the candidacies -- the two parties will both be fielding candidates in 22 districts. However, that number is down from over 40 overlaps only two weeks ago.

Furthermore, fielding candidates in 236 out of a total 295 single-member districts is hardly running up a white flag of surrender. About 20% of the districts, mostly in Kyushu and the Chugoku regions of western Japan and the prefectures along the Japan Sea in eastern Japan, are so hopelessly dominated by Liberal Democratic Party machines that putting up candidates in them would be a waste of human and financial resources. Better to marshall the resources one has to contest the truly competitive districts, leaving the LDP strongholds alone.

The Yomiuri's account surreptitiously argues that the Abe administration and the LDP are invincible in this election. If one is talking about coming out on top numerically on December 14, this take is probably not wrong. However, to assume that Abe and Co. can come out this hastily arranged election with a strengthened capacity to govern and dominant position in Japan's political firmament is probably not right at all.